


i look like trouble but i guess you do too

by thatdamneddame



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, Canon Compliant, Friends to Lovers, M/M, One Shot, Star Trek Beyond, Star Trek: Into Darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 16:22:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19749373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatdamneddame/pseuds/thatdamneddame
Summary: Bones doesn’t throw up on Jim until the shuttle lands.





	i look like trouble but i guess you do too

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, for ever and always, to prettyasadiagram for the beta. 
> 
> Title from Lisa LeBlanc's "You Look Like Trouble (But I Guess I Do Too)."

McCoy doesn’t throw up on Jim until the shuttle lands.

“Fuck,” he groans. Cadets shuffle past them and whisper to one another about the two new, too old recruits.

Jim pats McCoy on the back, feeling strange being on the opposite side of this equation for the first time in his life. He’s usually the one puking on strangers at three in the morning. Jim is just immensely grateful that his boots are waterproof. “Hey, man, it’s okay.”

“Fuck,” McCoy says again, with feeling, wiping at his mouth with his sleeve.

Jim pulls McCoy a little more upright. “You going to be alright?” Over McCoy’s shoulder he can see the commander who’d pulled McCoy out of the bathroom earlier making her way over. “Come on, let’s get out of this tin can.” Jim practically drags McCoy off the shuttle, still woozy on his feet.

They still need to sit through processing, make sure Starfleet has all their medical records and correct financial and next of kin information on file. They need uniforms and placement testing and Jim, at least needs, to choose a career track. Instead, Jim pulls McCoy into the nearest bathroom and rinses the vomit off his shoes in the sink.

“All you got left is your bones, huh?” Jim asks as McCoy swishes water in his mouth, a terrible substitute for mouthwash and a good toothbrush, but beggars can’t be choosers. “Now that’s definitely true, because I’m pretty sure you just lost your dignity.”

McCoy splashes water on his face and glares at Jim in the mirror. It’s a fairly impressive glare; Jim figures most people are probably cowed by it, even without the bloodshot eyes he’s currently rocking. “I’m not sure I regret puking on you, kid.”

Jim shrugs, philosophical. Figures it’s true enough and, in any case, chances are he’s not going to see this guy again anytime soon.

McCoy runs his fingers through his hair, gathering himself. “Well, I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least offer to buy you a drink after losing my lunch on your shoes.”

Jim has never turned down a free drink in his life; he’s not going to start today.

*

They get a drink at a bar they end up never going to again.

“Well,” McCoy decides, handing Jim his beer, “this place is terrible.” It’s weirdly well-lit and clean, filled with young, pretty people who have never had to make use of mood lighting in their entire life. McCoy looks around at everyone with deep suspicion. “Now I feel like I need to buy you another drink to make up for bringing you to this fresh circle of hell.”

Jim laughs, delighted. Just to see what happens, he says, “I don’t know, I kind of like it.”

McCoy looks at him, repulsion clear on his face. “No offense meant, kid, but _bless_ your heart.”

Jim grins and knocks back his beer. It’s going to be the start of a beautiful friendship; he can feel it in his bones.

*

Bones, Jim learns, has come to Starfleet a full-fledged and impressive-in-his-own-right doctor, only the pesky Starfleet regs and required classes missing from his CV. For this, he gets a single close to the med center. Jim gets a roommate who makes his bed with hospital corners every morning, is in bed by eleven o’clock every night, and makes passive aggressive comments when Jim doesn’t use coasters. He suspects his roomie probably asked for a transfer the third time Jim came back past midnight, trying to be as quiet as possible but still reeking of sweat and liquor and smoke, but Starfleet gives exactly zero fucks about your preferred roommate when it’s training you to go live on a ship with five hundred of your closest strangers.

Bones likes to complain that he had a house once, that he had a real bed and a lawn. As far as Jim’s concerned, Bones has a private bathroom while Jim has a roommate that bogarts all the hot water. Jim likes to take naps on Bones’s couch, letting the sound of his complaining rock Jim to sleep, something comforting in the ebb and flow of his disdain. Bones is exactly who he is, couldn’t fathom pretending to be someone else, someone with softer edges.

It’s strange to think, but Jim has never been so thankful for someone puking on him in his entire life.

*

Halfway through their first year, Bones comes over after a double shift looking more haggard than usual, hair going every which way and more mysterious stains than normal on his smock.

“You can pick a lock, right?” he asks, wild, and then doesn't even wait for a reply before demanding, “Teach me.”

Jim spent most of his childhood and adulthood so far getting into no good; of course he can pick locks. But he never told Bones that. “Bones, buddy, I do not know what you think of me.”

“Can it, Jim,” Bones says, but there’s no heat to it. He just sounds tired. “I need to break into someone’s locker. Stupid cadet won’t tell me what he’s taken, and the tricorder results are all screwy.”

And, well, if it’s for a good reason, Jim is always up to help. Besides, he can’t imagine ever actually saying no to Bones.

What they find is a bottle of moonshine and a flagon of bloodwine, which turns out to be a terrible combination for any lifeform, but especially for Napeans. Bones practically glows with discovery.

Eventually Bones learns how to pick locks without Jim’s help, but not before he stops pretending that he likes digging through people’s lockers for medical reasons. Jim never stops finding it hilarious.

*

Jim fucks his way through academy because he can and he wants to. He has always needed a way to get out of his own head, but they don’t condone fighting much at Starfleet and drinking alone is out because he doesn’t want Bones thinking Jim is okay with that particular personality trait.

“You think they give out prizes for collecting ’em all, kid?” Bones asks during Jim’s physical.

“I don’t think you get to judge me like that, as my doctor.” Jim tells him. They might not be able to pick their own roommates, but Jim makes sure his once-a-semester Starfleet-required physical is with Bones. There are too many secrets in his medical history that he doesn’t want in the hands of a stranger. Plus, Jim wants a doctor-patient relationship that has zero chance of being ruined by sex.

Bones rolls his eyes and marks something down on his PADD. “Fine. Remind me when we go out for drinks later to tell you to keep it in your pants.”

“I can’t exactly sleep around when I’m a captain,” Jim points out. Jim is horny, not stupid.

That actually earns him a smile and Jim has to try to not radiate delight at that. He likes to collect Bones’s smiles like pennies, shiny and bright and rare. “Yeah, yeah. Jim Kirk, always thinking about his future. How could I forget?”

Jim laughs. His favorite Bones is bitchy Bones. “It’s probably just old age.”

It earns him an extra twenty minutes of running on the stress test, but Jim thinks it’s worth it.

*

When Jim called his mom and told her that he enlisted, she cried. She cries again when Jim calls the day before his birthday, and Jim doesn’t quite know if, by joining Starfleet, he’s letting her down or breaking her heart or living up to some sort of impossible expectation. He knows that Sam would say he’s being stupid, but Sam has their father’s first name—he knows exactly how he fits into George Kirk’s legacy. Jim is either a reminder or a harbinger, and sometimes that feels like a promise for something more, something better, and sometimes it feels like an impossible weight around his neck.

Which is exactly why, back in Iowa, Jim would spend his birthdays alone and, preferably, drunk. He would find a bar and either someone to fight or someone to fuck, anything that would turn his brain off for a while. This year, there’s a moment of silence in the morning and mandatory training on Kelvin pods in the afternoon.

Bones takes one look at him afterward and says, “I got wine and I got whiskey, kid.”

Around them, cadets filter out across the campus, lighthearted with the confidence that they will likely never need to use a Kelvin pod. Jim vibrates with something that’s not quite anger.

“Both,” Jim says. There’s a group of cadets standing nearby, leaning against each other, laughing. It’s like nails on a chalkboard to Jim’s ears. “Both is good.”

*

Jim wakes up, drooling into the sofa, to the smell of coffee and pancakes.

On the small table, Bones has arranged a blueberry smiley face on the pancakes and there’s a carefully gift-wrapped box that Jim is terrified is for him. Jim sits there, not really sure what he’s supposed to say.

Bones rolls his eyes. He's puttering around and wearing a “kiss the cook” apron. “It’s like you’ve never had a birthday before.”

“Bones,” Jim tries, struggling to figure out the right words. Bones shoves the gift toward Jim.

“You’re _supposed_ to open it and say, ‘Thank you,’ even if you hate it,” Bones says, voice dangerously close to fond exasperation. “You’re _supposed_ to eat the pancakes, but I can do waffles if you want.”

Jim smiles and picks up his knife and fork. He’s tempted to ask for waffles, for an omelet, to see how far Bones’s charity will go. But his mother always cries on his birthday and Jim’s never had a real friend before. “Thanks, Bones,” he says and means it.

*

Jim’s not really sure how, before, he never picked up on the fact that, for a total curmudgeon, Bones likes birthdays. Or maybe it’s just that Bones has a soft spot for Jim’s birthday.

There’s an old hardcover copy of _Gray’s Anatomy_ that first year. The next year, Bones takes Jim to an antique car show an hour outside of the city. He throws Jim a small birthday party and then something bigger, invites all of Jim’s friends because even if Bones says he only likes people when he’s putting them back together, he’s a soft touch at heart.

Jim still has to go to the mandatory Kelvin pod training every year—still has to stand there and wonder why no one thought that maybe the captain didn’t have to go down with the ship before Jim’s dad decided to make an example of himself and his mom still cries—but there’s always Bones, lurking around the corner with a party or a gift. Always there, letting Jim know that he’s enough, even without the Kirk legacy tied around his neck.

It takes him a while to get used to it, but now Jim kind of gets why people are into birthdays.

*

Jim makes other friends, eventually. He sleeps with half of them, but he also sits with them at lunch and bitches about classes and studies for tests with them.

Bones, Jim knows, hangs out with the other blue shirts when he's not harassing Jim into eating salads before drinking him under the table.

These friendships are not the same.

“Did you know Leonard’s divorced?” Sueyi asks one day at lunch and Jim thinks G _ood lord, who doesn’t_? But she has this look on her face, soft and earnest, like this is a secret learned and shared.

Maybe that’s the point. Jim knows Bones’s secrets and Bones knows Jim’s. He told Bones about Tarsus, after all.

Jim looks at Sueyi’s face and can’t imagine telling her the same. “Yeah,” he admits. “I knew.”

*

Spring semester of Jim’s second year, the Kobayashi Maru crawls under Jim’s skin and it festers there.

It’s not mandatory for command track cadets, but everyone knows that it’s impossible to get a decent posting without it. Even still, Jim would probably do it anyways.

He fails.

Bones buys him a drink after. “It’s impossible, Jim. You did your best.”

Jim’s best got half his crew killed and left people stranded to die. Jim can’t imagine a universe where he finds this an acceptable outcome. The next time it’s offered, he signs up again.

*

They give him a massive data file that tells him everything about the ship and let him study it like any captain would. Jim memorizes the _Kobayashi Maru_ ’s crew list, learns her systems inside and out. When he closes his eyes, he can see her, how she would be, out there in the black.

He reads every book he can on Klingons, on their warbirds and their tactics, reads them in all the languages he knows.

It’s better this time but also so much worse. Defeat tastes worse the second time.

*

Jim doesn’t tell Bones he’s doing it again until the day before. Bones figures out what he did almost instantly; he yells at him all the way back to the room, yells at him through dinner and through the night. Reckless, he says. Impulsive and cocky. Shortsighted and egotistical.

“What the hell were you thinking, Jim?” Bones says, again and again, without pause for answer. And Jim wants to say, _They shouldn’t be training us to die. They shouldn’t be teaching us that there’s such a thing as impossible._ Jim thinks that he’s gone too far, that Bones will put up with a lot but not this. Jim wants to say, _I’m sorry, I should have told you, I shouldn’t have had you there_ , because he’s not sorry he did it but he is sorry that his ego got in the way and he gave Bones a front row seat to classic Jim Kirk sabotage.

When the summons for the disciplinary hearing comes, Bones says, “They shouldn’t be making an impossible test anyways,” and Jim lets out the breath he’d been holding. “If people weren’t trying to beat the impossible, we wouldn’t have the medicine we have now. Hell, Jim, humans would never have made it to the stars.”

Bones stands by his side the entire time and Jim does not know if he’ll ever be able to say _thank you_ the way he means it.

*

Not that it matters.

Jim had mostly told Pike the line about doing it in three years because Jim’s never met a challenge he didn’t want to take head on. Pike was right, though, about Jim being kind of a genius. Jim tested out of most of the basic classes, all the beginner’s guide to astrophysics and astronavigation and Your Warp Drive and You. When Nero decides it’s time for round two, Jim’s two and a half years in and only half a semester away from graduating.

“Aren’t you the captain now that you’re back?” Jim asks Pike when Nero is dead and the _Enterprise_ is limping back to earth. “I can stop acting.”

“Son, Dr. McCoy won’t let me out of bed for anything more strenuous than a trip to the head, and even that I think he takes exception to. You were smart and you saved us. You’re the captain.”

Jim lets that rattle around his head the entire trip back and decides it’s stupid.

“That’s a terrible prerequisite for captaincy,” Jim tells Bones. “I got marooned for the same reason.”

“Pike’s a lot more sensible than Spock,” Bones says. “Besides, Captain Pike isn’t cleared for anything more than trips to the head. You’re the captain, Captain.” Bones slaps Jim on the shoulder and grins. “You’re gonna do fine.”

Jim gets the _Enterprise_ back to Earth and gets a commendation for his trouble. They look past the academic suspension. He figures he did okay.

By the time they finish repairing the _Enterprise_ —reinforcing her hull and rebuilding the med bay and restaffing her roster—Jim’s almost four months out of the academy.

Jim doesn’t really expect that they’ll let him keep the ship, but they do.

*

Even after all these years of friendship, Jim’s never met Jocelyn, never properly. Her relationship with Bones waxes and wanes according to the tides of her goodwill and desire to repair the past. At best, it’s just a message. Simple good wishes. A question. A shared memory unearthed and no longer painful. Most of the time, it’s a letter from her lawyer.

Jocelyn calls after Nero. Jim walks into Bones’s quarters, uninvited because he hasn’t needed an invitation from Bones in years, and finds Bones hunched over his PADD, blue light illuminating his face.

“I know I told you to leave and never come back but, Leonard, that’s not really what I meant,” comes a woman’s voice from the screen. There’s a forced lightness to her voice and Jim knows who it is instantly. He’d seen a picture of Jocelyn once, on accident, digging through Bones’s things looking for something completely different and finding Bones’s wedding pictures instead. They’d looked young and happy. Jocelyn had a sharp mouth and long red hair twisted into a complicated braid. Bones looked impossibly young; hair wild, eyes bright. Jim put the picture back instantly, never told Bones he’d found it.

“I joined Starfleet, Joce,” Bones says, turns his head just enough that he can see Jim and doesn’t seem surprised to see him standing there at all. “I don’t really know what you thought would happen.”

Jim makes a complicated gesture. _Do you want me to leave?_ Bones shakes his head, mouths _stay_.

There is a pause and then Jocelyn laughs; Bones turns his head back to her. “You’ve changed,” she says.

“Not really.” Bones sighs, glances over his shoulder at Jim again. “Thank you for calling. You didn’t have to.”

“Whatever happened between us, Len, I loved you once.” Jim can hear her sigh but isn’t close enough to the screen to see the expression on her thin face. “Next time someone breaks your heart, don’t try to kill yourself.”

Bones barks out a laugh; it sounds almost painful. “Thanks for the advice. Not sure I can make any promises.”

“Goodbye, Leonard.” Jim doesn’t know the last time they spoke, doesn’t know how that conversation went, but he has an idea. When Jocelyn says goodbye, it sounds final.

“Thanks for calling. Tell your ma I said hi.”

Jocelyn laughs. “She still hates you, you know.”

And Jim is surprised to find Bones laughs, too. “She always had more sense than us.”

Jocelyn must disconnect the call because there’s nothing else but silence. Bones just keeps sitting there in the dark. Jim’s never gone steady with anyone—he’s always leapt without looking but, even still, he’s always found marriage preposterously dangerous. Jim sits next to Bones on the couch, shoulders touching, lost for words because he’s not sure he even has the vocabulary.

“We were good together, for a while,” Bones says at last.

Jim wants to say _I’m glad you got closure_ and more than that he wants to tell him _I’ll never break your heart_. Instead he sits next to Bones on the couch and says, “I’m sorry, Bones.”

Bones’s whole body sags, head bent so far forward it’s nearly on his lap. “Don’t let me be alone tonight.”

Jim stays. He finds, when it comes to Bones, he doesn’t even know how to leave.

*

Jim’s always had a laundry list of acquaintances, but never close friends. There was his brother, for a time, and then there was Bones, filling a gap Jim didn’t even know was there.

Now Jim has a whole ship of people in the trenches with him. There were a lot of lectures at the academy about the benefits and dangers fraternization—you can’t spend years on a ship and not become friends with anyone, but it’s dangerous for a captain to play favorites. Jim has spent his entire life on the edge of danger, so he learns everyone’s names and home planets and favorite drinks. He plays chess with Spock and shoots the shit with Sulu and talks shop with Scotty.

Slowly, the crew becomes a team, bonds forged through something other than trauma. But even still, even now, Jim’s favorite person is Bones and his favorite part of the day is the quiet moments, just a glass of wine and a ship-load of gossip, ranks forgotten at the door.

*

The first time Uhura calls him _captain_ without irony or ire, Jim almost forgets what he’s going to say next.

Later, over dinner in the mess hall, the crew chattering happily around them, Jim makes the mistake of telling Bones.

“Oh, _captain_ ,” Bones says, voice dripping with every ounce of Southern charm he can muster. “Oh captain, my captain, were you looking for some validation outside of the chest candy?” He flutters his eyelashes, which is, frankly, _horrifying_.

Jim nearly chokes on his drink. “ _No_. I just didn’t think she liked me.”

“She doesn’t have to like you; she respects you. You’re the captain,” Bones says, thankfully dropping the act. “ _Captain_.”

Jim glowers. “I will demote you.”

Bones laughs, startling a group of nervous-looking blue shirts eating a table over. Clearly, Bones has continued to be the universe’s grumpiest boss in space. “You can’t and you wouldn’t if you could.”

“I could try,” Jim says instead of admitting that Bones has got his number. “Doctor.”

“Now,” Bones says smiling, “I like the sound of that.”

*

Bones takes to calling Jim by his name in front of the crew whenever possible. _Jim, I need to speak with you in the ready room_ or _Jim, you’re an hour late for your mandatory physical_ or _If you don’t eat a salad sometime within the next 48 hours, Jim, I will have Nurse Chapel hold you down so I can force feed you_.

It’s pretty funny until Spock sits them down to lecture them about propriety. It’s still pretty funny after that, too, but they behave themselves.

*

Jim may have saved Earth, saved Pike, but Vulcan was still lost. Starfleet lets him keep the ship, keep her crew, but there are no special favors. To become a real Starfleet hero, you have to die.

The Enterprise is sent on milk runs in neighboring systems, mostly scientific observation or to keep up appearances. No exploring new worlds. No meeting new life forms. It’s penance, Jim supposes, for being young and cocky and not following Starfleet’s rules in the academy, except that Jim followed all the ones that mattered.

Pike tells him that he’s doing good. For a while, it feels like enough.

*

“Don’t be mad you ain’t dead, Jim,” Bones tells him. It’s Jim’s first birthday as captain, but he’s alone in his quarters. Or, he was alone until Bones used his only-for-emergencies chief medical officer door code to break in, even though he has the actual code since Jim gave it to him immediately. At this point, what’s Jim’s is Bones’s and vice versa. Jim has a sinking suspicion that Bones is trying to prove a point. “Your old man didn’t go out into the world looking to die for a cause.”

“Ambassador Spock said that in his world I knew my father.” Jim only lets himself think about this on his birthday. Although, to be honest, it’s the only day of the year where it seems to matter.

Bones steals Jim’s drink and takes a swig. “Ambassador Spock is an emotionally manipulative dick who is very probably lying.”

Jim knows that Bones is thinking about the first time the two of them met, when the Ambassador had said _How_ _is Joanna_ , before he’d sworn off talking about that other universe, and Bones had clammed up. It’s one thing to know that in another universe your marriage still fails or you still end up on Tarsus, but another thing completely to know that your stillborn baby girl is alive and well where you can never touch her because she’s not really yours.

“Can you imagine what kind of dick I am to have a kid and still head out with your crazy ass. Can’t imagine Jocelyn would bring her to a space station. Can’t imagine,” Bones had finally said then, after a bottle of bourbon and too much silence.

Jim knows now that, half a bottle in, Joanna is all Bones can think about. Jim’s regrets aren’t the same as Bones’s, as deeply sad, but he has them. Ambassador Spock is a peculiar sort of problem, but he doesn’t change the cold hard facts of Jim’s life as he’s known it in this universe. His only universe.

“I need to call my mom,” Jim says instead of playing misery poker with lives they haven’t lived.

Bones takes another swallow of Jim’s drink. “I'll be here for you when you're done.”

*

There is a difference—and it takes Jim a long time to figure it out; he’s still figuring it out—between being Bones’s friend and Bones’s captain.

The relationship between captain and chief medical officer is a weird one; there was literally a chapter on it, back at the academy, while all the other senior officers were lumped together. The captain is in charge of the chief medical officer. The chief medical officer can declare the captain unfit for duty. Bones will always know more of the crews’ secrets than Jim will. They both hold the lives of the crew in their hands.

Bones calls Jim _captain_ , without irony or humor, when he’s on duty and he’s not trying to prove a point. Jim calls him _doctor_ in return, more often than not, but sometimes on duty _Bones_ just slips off the tongue. Off duty, no one but Jim calls Bones that. No one even asks, just accepts the eccentricity. Everyone who wasn’t there for the _Enterprise_ ’s maiden voyage, for Nero, probably figures it’s something they weren’t there for. The original crew members, they just accept that Jim Kirk is Jim Kirk.

Jim has always known that Bones is a good doctor—he’s been on the patient end of that relationship, he’s seen Bones’s CV, he’s listened Bones’s stories, and he taught Bones how to break into cadets’ lockers, but it’s different from being his boss. Bones writes impeccable reports. The medical staff all report that they are happy, that they are well supported, that if Bones were to opt for another posting they would opt to follow. As a captain, Jim knows that he is lucky to have him. As Bones’s friend, well, Nurse Chapel becomes such a devoted left-hand man that Jim is momentarily jealous that he’s being replaced. Jim’s a smart guy. He can keep up with a lot of medical shop talk, but Chapel’s understanding of neurology across xenobiology has Jim worried that he’s not enough.

It’s probably no different than Jim and Spock, though, he figures.

“Does she know about your dad?” Jim asks one night. They’re curled on their sides together, a new thing, something they don’t talk about but if asked Jim wouldn’t deny it. “Nurse Chapel?”

“No. Why would she?” Bones says behind him, face mashed into the curve of Jim’s neck. Jim’s never really been called a cuddler before, but Bones’s arm is slung around Jim, his knees pressed to the back of Jim’s thighs, and Jim couldn’t move even if he wanted to.

“Is she your work wife?” Jim asks, curious. He’s known Bones for years now and he’s still always wanting for more.

He can feel Bones sigh, breath hot against his shoulder blades. “I’m sleeping, Jim. Does it matter?”

Jim rolls over, presses his forehead to Bones’s, knees awkwardly pressed together. “No,” Jim admits, “it doesn’t.”

“Good,” Bones decides and turns over, wrapping Jim around him now. Holds Jim’s hand in his own, against his beating heart.

Jim’s not really sure why they weren’t doing this back at the academy, why this is a sometimes thing rather than an always thing, except for the fact that Jim doesn’t really know what he’d do with himself if he had an armful of Bones every night. If he were Bones’s friend and his captain and his whatever-this-is full time.

So maybe other captains have an easier time with their chief medical officer, Jim supposes. But Jim doesn’t think that he could manage being captain quite the same, without this.

*

Time goes on; Jim gets cocky.

*

There’s a rumor of a five-year mission. Jim can taste it on his tongue. He wants it like he hasn’t wanted anything since Pike first looked at him, broken and bloody, and dared him to do better. Jim’s missed the thrill of new things.

“Aren’t you getting a little long in the tooth to be looking for adventure?” Bones asks, but he’s been saying that for as long as Jim’s known him. Bones still always says yes whenever Jim asks him to follow. Bones will bend and break the rules to give Jim what he wants. Jim tries not to abuse the privilege.

*

“I ain’t mad you got yourself a work wife,” Bones says, after that time Jim dies. Now that they are alone, gone is the gallows humor from when Jim first woke up. Jim is still stuck in bed and everything around him is too white, too sterile. Bones doesn’t sound mad. He sounds small and sad and broken, all the things that Jim wanted to keep Bones from. All the things he promised himself he would never be the cause of. “I’m mad that I wasn’t the call they made. Can you imagine, Jim? I found out when they brought me your body, like I was just your _doctor_.”

Bones is Jim’s doctor. On the ship, Spock is the first officer, the only person besides Jim who outranks Bones. The rest of it, they’ve never defined.

Jim had wanted, back in the day, a doctor-patient relationship that had zero chance of being ruined by sex. They have sex now, sometimes, as loneliness starts to creep in, as they creep out further into the black. They bicker constantly. They keep each other’s secrets. It hasn’t ruined anything.

In a very terrible way, Jim is thankful Bones wasn’t there for the end, for Jim’s last painful gasps. Jim is glad that he has this second chance, that the last face he will see in this universe will not be Spock’s. He would have liked to see Bones, one last time, if it had been the end.

Very carefully Jim reaches his hand out to Bones. Bones does not move, either away or toward, and Jim is shattered to realize that he almost lost this forever. Horrified to realize that Bones is the most important person in his life and no one knew that. An entire ship of people and not one of them thought to call Bones first.

“I’m sorry,” Jim says, the truth. “I’ll fix it.” He wants to promise he won’t die again, won’t risk his neck, but Jim knows that is a promise he cannot keep, in this universe or any other.

Bones sighs, shifts closer to Jim, takes his hand in his own. “Just don’t do it again.”

*

Sometimes, now, off duty and with their friends, away from the crew at large, Jim will take Bones’s hand, just because. Just to see. Bones never pulls away. Most times, he pulls Jim closer.

*

The most ridiculous thing Uhura ever says is, “Leonard is here because of you. He followed you into the black.”

They are seven months into their five-year mission and they finally had their first day where they might not make it—where Jim might not have made it because he was busy risking his damn fool neck and Bones let him know it, not quite making it to the ready room before starting his dressing down.

“That’s not it,” he tells her, because it’s not. Bones was heading toward the stars long before Jim came along. Starfleet had offered Bones a fellowship three times before he’d finally accepted. Bones is scared of space, of flying, but there isn’t much he wouldn’t do if he could lessen someone’s pain. He’d only accepted once the promise of family had been ripped away from Jocelyn and him and they never recovered. “He’s not here because of me. I’d tell you to ask him yourself, but he’d kill me.”

As captain, Jim is a keeper of all his ship’s secrets, but even still, he would never betray Bones like that.

Uhura gives him one of those darkly appraising looks, the one that Jim knows makes Spock’s Vulcan heart go pitter-patter. “There isn’t much he wouldn’t do for you.”

“Friendship goes both ways,” he counters, not really meaning it. What Jim means is love.

*

Spock and Uhura break up about every eighteen months, give or take. Bones has a little chart he keeps, tucked in the pages of his ancient hard copy of _Gray’s Anatomy_.

Jim finds it one day like he discovers all of Bones’s secrets—completely on accident and because Bones lets him.

“Well I can’t exactly keep it on the ship’s computer, now can I?” Bones pulls the paper from Jim’s hand and carefully refolds it. “Spock would find it.”

Jim doesn’t really bother trying to hide his laugh. “And this is something that needs to be tracked?”

Bones scowls at him. “Heartbreak is medically relevant.”

“Okay, sure. But why are you writing down whose fault it is each time?” Jim tries to point out Bones’s chicken-scratch notes, but Bones keeps the paper firmly out of his reach.

“Science,” Bones says tersely, but there’s that twinkle in his eye where he knows he’s being ridiculous. Bones has always been a giant gossip at heart. It’s great.

Just because he likes fucking with him, Jim puts on his captain voice and says, “If it’s in the name of science, we should probably let the chief science officer know.”

“Fuck you,” decides Bones. “I’m getting a drink. Want one?”

Jim does. It how most of their disagreements end anyways.

*

When Sulu asks him to officiate his wedding, Jim’s first instinct is to tell him no.

“Did you tell him that you think marriage is the last trappings of our terrible twenty-first-century selves?” Bones asks when Jim tells him about it later that night.

Jim is momentarily scandalized. “I’ve never said that.” He’s thought it plenty, but he’s horrified that Bones knows. Even after everything Bones still believes in marriage and Jim’s not enough of a dick to take that away from him.

“Jim, I don’t know why you keep acting like I’ve never met you before,” Bones says, but he doesn’t sound offended.

“I’m reconsidering my position on the subject,” Jim tells him, prim, because he is. He’s never told Bones that he thinks marriage is a prison, but he’s thought it plenty. Bones shells out alimony every month, tied to Jocelyn until one of them kicks the bucket just because they thought they’d love each other until the end of time but didn’t. But after years in the black, Jim has seen the good it can bring. Jim has known Bones long enough now to understand that marriage can be something great, which is why it can hurt so badly when it fails. Instead of saying that, Jim just tells Bones’s raised eyebrow, “Starting with Hikaru and Ben.”

Bones is looking at him now like he’s one of his lab specimens, a problem that he can’t quite solve. “Did you at least tell him this job is what’s probably going to end his marriage?” The divorce rate for officers is staggeringly high, and it’s even more alarming when the marriage is with a civilian. Ben’s a social worker with a passion for fencing. He’s never even left the solar system before.

“They have a kid now.” Jim shrugs. “And they’ve been together since Sulu was in flight school. I think if anyone can make it, they can.”

Bones continues to peer at him, curious. “You said you’d do it.”

“Hey, I’m trying to grow as a person over here,” Jim says. “You don’t know everything about me.”

The fight seems to go out of Bones—a casual grump at heart, not one for long-term grudges—although he’s still looking at Jim curiously. “Just don’t fuck it up, kid.”

Bones is weirdly quiet for the rest of the night but come breakfast he’s his normal surly self. Jim doesn’t ask; Bones has always given Jim his secrets when he’s ready.

*

Spock and Uhura have broken up when the wedding invitation arrives.

Uhura’s and Jim’s PADDs chime with an incoming message at the same time. When Uhura looks down at hers, Jim can tell she’s trying very hard not to give anything away. Jim looks down at his own PADD and sees Sulu and Ben’s wedding invitation flashing across the screen. He selects that he’s coming, and he’ll have the chicken. Uhura is still breathing steadily, very carefully not moving.

It’s one of those rare shifts where Jim and Uhura are off, but Spock and Bones are both on duty. Jim talks to Spock about Starfleet policy, the nuances of the Prime Directive, warp cores and ship maintenance and theoretical physics—things that Jim can’t really talk to anyone else about because Jim has always been a genius despite his best efforts. With Uhura, he usually talks Spock.

“You okay?” he asks, both her captain and her friend.

She smiles. “I’m fine.” She taps on her screen and Jim hears the sound of an outgoing message. “Are you taking Leonard as your plus one?”

“He has his own invitation,” Jim tells her. He’s already tapped out a message to Bones, _I’m getting the chicken. You get the steak and we’ll share_.

“And when Sulu puts you both at the singles table?”

“I know who I’m going home with, so it cuts down on the bullshit.” Jim laughs. “What about you?”

“I don’t treat weddings like a meat market,” Uhura says darkly. “Spock and I are grownups. We’ll deal with it.”

“Sure you will,” Jim agrees. “Spock just has mommy issues. And daddy issues. They’re made worse by the Vulcan issues.” He knocks his shoulder gently against hers. “Besides, I’ll be there for moral support.”

Uhura smiles at him, wry. “You’ll be too busy eyeing up Leonard, but I appreciate the sentiment.”

“I can multitask.” Jim grins back at her. “Or we can put Bones on Spock duty.”

When Uhura laughs, it’s genuine—straight from the gut—and Jim knows that she’s going to be okay.

*

“You two ever thought about it?” Sulu asks. Ben and Demora are twirling on the dance floor and Sulu’s smile is soft, comfortable. Jim doesn’t often have the chance to see his helmsman so unguarded and he’s thankful for it.

Jim looks away. “Thought about what?”

“You and Leonard,” Sulu says. “Getting married. Having some kids.”

Jim honest to God laughs, head thrown back. “Me and Bones? No, Mr. Sulu, I can honestly say we have not.” He finds himself looking to Bones, eyes automatically drawn to him across the room.

Sulu must see something on Jim's face. “You sure about that captain?”

Bones is laughing with Chapel and Jim feels that familiar twist of his gut, something in between jealousy and envy. Jim thinks about everything he knows about love—his mother's grief, Uhura and Spock forever on and off again, Bones running to the stars to get away from a broken heart. Marriages end, like all things must. “Yeah,” Jim says, “I’m sure.”

“Well, Captain,” Sulu says, “Maybe you should.”

*

They still don’t talk about it, but Bones sleeps in the captain’s quarters almost every night. Even when he sleeps in his own quarters, Jim is always there. Jim can’t remember the last time he slept alone. Jim would never abuse his power as captain and sleep with his crew, except for the fact that he’s been sleeping with Bones for years now. Honestly, at this point, Jim couldn’t even fathom trying to sleep with anyone else, can’t see any reason to go out like he used to when he can come back to his quarters instead and share a drink with his best friend.

Even as they go further out into the black and everything starts to feel more episodic—the peace negotiations and Starfleet duties and all the normal technological hiccups that come with a ship like this, a mission like this—Jim can find nothing tedious in this small bubble of domesticity they’ve carved out for each other.

Jim doesn’t know why peace negotiations can bore him to tears, but he still feels butterflies in his stomach when he watches Bones brush his teeth in the morning, bed head in full effect.

It keeps him going, even on the bad days.

*

Jim almost misses it, tucked at the end of the standard weekly Starfleet update. The standard two sentences of well-wishing and nothing else. But it sticks with Jim.

“Vice Admiral Meija is retiring,” Jim tells Bones that night. “He was stationed at Yorktown.”

Bones frowns. He’s halfway out of his smock, shirt pulled awkwardly over his head, black undershirt riding up. “Yorktown,” he repeats.

“Yeah, big space station. Cutting edge. You spent three weeks telling me how their antigravity system was going to pit everyone’s bones.”

“Is that why he’s retiring?” Bones asks darkly, out of his shirt and tugging on his flannel pajama pants.

Jim rolls his eyes. “They fixed the antigravity system before anyone moved in. But that’s not the point. Yorktown. You said you wouldn’t mind a starbase posting.” Bones stares at him, inscrutable. “And I wouldn’t either.”

Bones frowns. “You sure about that, Jim?”

Jim’s not, he’s really not, but he’s not sure this is what he wants either. Pike challenged Kirk to make captain, to rise up and meet his father’s legacy, but now he doesn’t know where to go from here. He’s not sure the good they’ve done, the small diplomacies, are enough to wash the blood off his hands. And despite what Bones is always accusing him of, Jim is not actually looking to get himself killed.

“I think I should consider it,” Jim says instead, and then corrects himself. “ _We_ should consider it.”

Bones might not be able to cut and run with Jim, he might not even want too.

Jim’s not really worried about losing Bones, except that he’s terrified of losing him. It’s the only no-win scenario Jim believes in. Either he’s the captain that makes the call that gets Bones killed or Bones dies because Jim isn’t there to save him. Jim knows Bones feels the same way about being Jim’s doctor. They’re too tied up in each other’s lives. Even before they added sex to the equation, love was already there, and Jim knows that’s the most dangerous part.

But they are dangerous men, for better or for worse—independent, intelligent, and married to the job except for how they’re kind of married to each other. They both know people who’ve made the long-distance work—Sulu and Ben mostly—but they know more who have had to sacrifice either their relationship or their career.

“You sure they fixed the gravity?” Bones asks, and Jim is helpless to stop his smile.

“Is that all you’re worried about?” he teases.

Bones flops down onto the couch. “No,” he says, “but it’s a start.”

*

When Sulu asked Jim if they’d thought about it, marriage, Jim lied. They had thought about it, actually. Jim had asked, one night, too far into a bottle of Saurian Brandy, “Would you get married again?”

Bones was loose and easy, having gotten the day off thanks to a complicated favor chain in medical. “You asking?”

Jim had shrugged. “Just wondering.” He ran his fingers through Bones’s hair because he wanted to and he could and he didn’t think the thrill of being allowed to touch would ever go away.

Bones hummed softly and Jim thought that was the end of that. Jim hadn’t really thought about the marriage thing before, didn’t know why he was asking now, except that he was endlessly and always fascinated by everything Bones.

But then Bones rolls over and says. “I’ve been married, Jim. This is better.”

Jim’s never been married; but he thinks Bones just might be right.


End file.
